Two fights have been announced for SENGOKU II on May 18th. Undefeated and very entertaining Korean Kwang Hee Lee will take on Pride veteran Eiji Mitsuoka, who defeated Joachim Hansen in his last fight. In the other announced fight Satoru Kitaoka will make his SENGOKU debut against Hero’s veteran Ian Schaffa.

Three fights for the upcoming first round of the DREAM Middleweight GP have been announced. In one fight Kazushi Sakuraba will face Brazilian born Kyokushin Karate fighter Andrews Nakahara. In the second two legends will collide as Kiyoshi Tamura takes on Masakatsu Funaki. In the last announced fight Pride veterans Denis Kang and Gegard Mousasi will meet.

Andrews Nakahara is a very good Kyokushin Karate fighter and is only 24 years old, but I don’t think he has ever fought in an MMA fight before. He is 183 cm tall and weighs 80 kg. Here is his Kyokushin Karate tournament history from Kyokushin4Life:

Jorge Santiago is a good signing by WVR. 2007 was a great year for him as he went 4-0 and won the Strikeforce 4-Man Tournament. Maybe a fight between Santiago and Sasaki will happen at SENGOKU II as Sasaki was supposed to face him in the first round of the Strikeforce Tournament. The other three aren’t surprising, Monson has fights all over the world lined up this year.

At the 14th All-Japan Combat Wrestling Championships two days ago Takanori Gomi competed in an exhibition tag team match against the man who developed Combat Wrestling, Noriaki Kiguchi (the man who is facing Gomi first in the video below). Kiguchi Gym is where Gomi’s career really started as he joined the gym after he dropped out of school and his parents disowned him.

Another thing to note is that Satoru Kitaoka won the tournament in the 80 kg class. He is one of the new signings of WVR and will probably get a shot at Gomi if he wins a couple of fights. He has defeated fighters such as Carlos Condit, Hidehiko Hasegawa, Paul Daley, Fabricio Monteiro and Kurt Pellegrino. Now he is going down to the Lightweight division for his SENGOKU debut.

No point in having a blog inside a blog. More posts from now on, even though they might be short.

March 23rd – Nick Thompson Has Three Fights Left With WVR

MMAFighting.com: What is your status with World Victory Road?

Thompson: I have got a four-fight deal with them. So I have three fights left and it’s non-exclusive and I’m expected to sign something with HCF (Hardcore Championship Fighting) up in Canada in the day or two. So I’ll be fighting for those two organizations, kinda switching in between the two.

MMAFighting.com: For your next fight, are we going to see you at the HCF first or right back to World Victory Road?

Thompson: Sounds like I’ll be fighting HCF next and then possibly returning to Japan in June.

I know that Misaki’s contract with WVR was only for one fight, but in this new Sherdog article it says:

Grabaka frontman Sanae Kikuta , as well as World Victory Road executive and J-ROCK president Takahiro Kokuho are reportedly leading the negotiations with Strikeforce, which would reportedly allow Misaki retain the ability to fight for WVR’s Sengoku promotion in Japan while competing in Strikeforce stateside.

Four names have been announced for SENGOKU II on May 18th. They are Roger Gracie, Satoru Kitaoka, Yoshihiro Nakao and UFC veteran Yuki Sasaki.

Kitaoka has fought mostly in Pancrase throughout his career and was on a great five fight winning streak where he defeated fighters such as Paul Daley and Fabricio Monteiro, but, in January his streak ended as he lost to Katsuya Inoue by split decision for the vacant King Of Pancrase Welterweight title.

Yoshihiro Nakao was one of the rumored opponents for Mirko Cro Cop on March 15th, but that didn’t happen and he will now fight in SENGOKU. He last fought at Pride’s final event in April of 2007 where he submitted Edson Drago.

Yuki Sasaki has fought in most big promotions around the world. You might remember him best for his good effort against Dean Lister at UFC Fight Night 6 in 2006. He was supposed to fight in a 4-man Strikeforce tournament last year but was pulled out of it because he didn’t get medically cleared by the CSAC.